'Dhara' Decorative Tissue Box in Printed Wood

Provenance

The Dhara tissue box cover belongs to the North Indian tradition of decorative woodware — the practice of treating cut wooden forms with colour and surface print to produce objects that are functional and decorative in equal measure. The technique is screen or digitally-applied printing on a prepared wood surface, sealed under resin for a waterproof finish. The tradition draws on centuries of painted and lacquered woodwork from workshops in Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh, where decorated wooden objects have been made for domestic and ceremonial use across generations.

The surface vocabulary of Dhara belongs to India's heritage decorative tradition: the border compositions, medallion forms, and layered ornament that organise the great decorative periods of North Indian visual culture — from Mughal carpet borders and architectural tile patterns to the painted registers of Rajput court manuscripts. Dhara (stream, the flow that carries forward) names the quality of this inheritance: the same compositional principles that organised a sixteenth-century court object appearing here on the surface of a daily domestic piece.

The piece is finished waterproof and accepts a standard tissue insert through the open top panel. Each box is individually handcrafted; print placement and colour tone may vary slightly between pieces.

Disclaimer

• These pieces are handcrafted in wood with a printed surface. Variations in tone and colour are a natural feature of the process.
• Minor differences in print registration or surface texture should be understood as the signature of individual craft, not a defect.